Analysis: Has Liz Truss driven herself into a cul-de-sac?

"Dear oh dear."

The words of King Charles as he greeted Liz Truss for what will soon become to both of them a normal weekly thing.

It was the chat, or audience, the monarch has with the prime minister each week.

So what on earth was the King referring to?

It appears it is something of a verbal tic of his, an attempt to move a conversation on from pleasantries to the substance of the meeting.

Of course, we'll never know for certain.

The camera stopped a few seconds later, as the most discreet of chats a prime minister gets to have properly began.

Rather less discreet, her conversations with her own MPs.

Ms Truss reminded her backbenchers of the government's help with people's energy bills.

We're told she said she can "see a way through".

The question, then, for some, is why the markets are being kept waiting for more than another fortnight, when they are clearly so jittery, if she knows the solution.

She also acknowledged, again, that her presentation of her policies could have been better so what she announced was less of a surprise to people.

And she accepted that how she'd done things and the consequences of this had left some unhappy.

And it certainly has.

Sources in the room said that backbencher Robert Halfon, the chair of the Education Select Committee and a former minister, accused the government of "trashing blue collar Conservatism".

He said the Conservative Party's record under David Cameron, Theresa May and Boris Johnson had included things like boosting apprenticeships and the living wage, whereas she had cut tax for millionaires and wants to cut affordable housing and cut benefits.

MPs there say he got a cheer, but Liz Truss looked "shocked" and said he could come to speak to her privately.

Grimaces

Afterwards, as MPs filed out, there were grimaces and gritted teeth, although the prime minister herself said it had been "very good".

What happens next is intriguing.

A consequence of the assault on the prime minister's authority at her party conference last week is a nervousness in No 10 and a desire to be seen to be reaching out and listening to Conservative MPs.

She did it once in public and twice in private on Wednesday - at Prime Minister's Questions, in the Commons tearoom afterwards and later in the question and answer session with backbenchers.

And this will continue next week when every Tory MP will have the chance to see her in regional groupings - to have their say on what she's doing and, crucially, what the Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng says in his economic statement in two weeks, on Monday 31 October.

And meanwhile, the markets and the country are left to ponder what might happen next, while 300 plus Conservative MPs trundle in with their grumbles, hobby horses and priorities.

The government appears to have found itself inadvertently driving down a cul-de-sac - and doesn't want to be seen to reverse out of it.

Remember it has already at the very least eased off the pace, with the cancellation of the tax cut for the best paid.

The challenge is how to retain as much economic and political credibility as possible, when preserving one risks the other.

Of course, ministers hope this whole strategy turns out not to be a cul-de-sac after all and, after several twists and turns, and adventures over the grass verge, a route to economic and political credibility is found, alongside economic growth.

But right now plenty of backseat drivers - within the Conservative Party and beyond - are questioning both the navigation and the person behind the wheel.